


Willing to Sacrifice Everything

by pdavidp



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-09-18 01:29:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9359294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pdavidp/pseuds/pdavidp
Summary: Saw Gerrera starts to depend more on Jyn Erso as a key member of the rebellion. She starts to think about what they will have to give up.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [imaginarycircus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginarycircus/gifts).



> Happy birthday ImaginaryCircus  
> <3 <3 <3

Saw and Jyn climbed the ramp into small transport ship. It was on loan from a friend of Saw's who made regular deliveries to a small Imperial Military outpost. Compared to the Saw's rebel ships, it was clean and well maintained.

Whenever Jyn boarded a new ship, she always inspected it for ways to escape. Since the beginning, she never really trusted Saw Gerrera. It's not that he did not love her and take care of her, two important things for a twelve year old girl, it's that his anger was a terrible thing. Once triggered, all logic and safety evaporated and Jyn's best option was to make a discrete exit. She looked around the small transport ship for escape pods and there were none.

Seeing the disappointment in her eyes Saw said, "Don't worry, Jyn. The ship won't need laser cannons on this mission." Saw patted the inside of the transport wall. "Nobody is going to get hurt."

Jyn knew this was a lie. Someone always got hurt and it always came as a surprise because Saw Gerrera kept mission details secret from almost everyone until they were already underway. He was right in thinking that she would never come along if she knew what she was about to do.

Without a word, Jyn set to work preparing the ship for their trip. She ran diagnostics and re-calibrated some systems, but found the ship to be in perfect order. She spent another minute searching the ships logs trying to find out more about the mission. Unsuccessful, Jyn reported back to Gerrera that the ship was ready and was surprised to find him wearing a simple, gray pilot's outfit. He pointed at a small bag in the corner which Jyn discovered including a matching gray jumpsuit. It fit well enough.

Their jump through hyperspace was uneventful and they entered into the orbit of the planet hosting the small Imperial Military outpost. Jyn sat quietly as Saw negotiated a plan for landing of his craft on the planet's surface. Saw's voice sounded lackadaisical, but at the same time his face betrayed twitches born from the real prospect of being caught and killed.

After landing was negotiated, but before they entered the atmosphere, Saw divulged the plan. "Two miles west of the landing pad find a man named Kardul Falton. He lives in a red house on the side of a hill. You won't miss it. Give him this note and do whatever he says. Meet me back here in exactly three hours after we depart. Don't come back early or late. Repeat your orders back to me." She did, word for word.

As they approached the planet, the warm rays of the closest star's light were blotted out by the growing horizon. They were silent for the few minutes it took to travel through the atmosphere and land on a dimly lit landing pad. Nobody was there to greet them.

"You won't have trouble getting to your destination because everyone is asleep, including Kardul who doesn't know you're coming. Give me your timer." Jyn handed him her time piece. He clicked a few small buttons with his large, battle-worn hands and presented it gently back to her. It was counting down from three hours. He winked at her. Jyn stuck her tongue out at him playfully. He smiled and turned away, facing west. She smiled and walked with purpose to the east.

The landscape was full of rolling grassy hills. While the soil didn't seem much for farming, it was pleasant enough to watch the hills raise up and subside in the distance as Jyn made her way east toward the only village in the area. The stars were unfamiliar, but beautiful and for a moment she forgot that she was on a mission.

When she arrived at the village, two Imperial Military watchmen looked up at Jyn as she walked with confidence through the open gate. She could have found a quiet spot to climb over the low wall that surrounded it, but that would have been suspicious. One of the guards opened his mouth to say something but thought better of it and went back to playing cards. Jyn wondered why the guards were not storm troopers. Maybe this village wasn't important enough even to get a couple storm troopers.

The sleepy village of tents, stone structures and metal structures seems to be cast randomly about in a vaguely circular configuration. In the distance, dark gray against the black of the night, was a small hill. As Jyn approached she could see three houses clumped together overlooking the village, one of which was red.

"Who's there?" said a deep voice in the darkness. Jyn turned around to see who it was but nobody was there. "Speak child," the same voice said sternly. This time the voice seemed behind her again and she spun around again. There, on the porch of the red house, was the dark outline of a man sitting in a chair.

"I'm looking for Kardul Falton," she said as confidently as she could.

"Who's asking for him?"

"I'm Liana Hallik," she lied without hesitation.

"Come on in Liana," he said. "You found him."

They entered small entry room with a single, flickering light which cast sickening, sharp shadows onto the wall. "I'm Kardul, what do you have for me." She handed him the note. He broke the seal on it and opened it quickly. After reading it once over, he looked blanking into the distance. Then he took a deep breath and then read it again and then started to smack the note against his hands in a rhythmic, nervous manor.

Jyn was starting to wonder if he was going to give her instructions when he seemed to snap out it. "Yeah. Got it," he said to himself. "Okay, Liana," Kardul said as he unlocked a heavily armored door with a loud clunk. "Take this bag and put it behind the guard post. Did you see the post on the way into the village?" She nodded as he handed a small but surprisingly heavy sack. "Don't get caught. Don't look in the bag." He pulled out a small blaster and a large black box with a handle on it. "Go," he said.

As Jyn walked through the quiet streets of the village with a heavy bag full of metal slung over her shoulder, she contemplated it's contents. She knew it was a bomb, but it was better to pretend like it wasn't. It could be a sack of money. It could be weapons or even Kyber crystals. As Jyn approached the guard shed she slipped down an ally between two stone structures which lead to an other ally that ran along the wall surrounding the village. She guessed that she could follow the wall to the back side of the guard post and she was right. Shoving the bag roughly under a pile of garbage, she retraced her steps back through the darkness onto the main road. She quietly passed through the gates, unnoticed and proceeded up the road, clenching her fists and jaw. They will never feel a thing. They will never feel a thing.

Jyn stopped suddenly and turned around to shout back to the guards, "Hey! Heeeeey!" From a distance they poked their sleepy faces out of the small, doomed guard post. "Palpatine is a shriveled old prune!" Jyn yelled and ran down the road with a healthy head start while the guards clambered out of their post and bolted down the road to catch her. She was fast for her age and was able to extend the chase long enough.

When the explosion happened, the dark of the night was temporarily illuminated in a yellow and blue light. Jyn, who was hiding behind a tree looking at her time piece, could feel the shock waves in the earth. Her pursuers turned around toward the village slack-jawed and ran back to the hole which was once their guard post and gap in the wall big enough to fit Jabba the Hut. As they reached the fiery blaze another explosion and then another erupted in different parts of the village.

On the trip back east, Jyn tried to think of all the reasons why Gerrera would attack this otherwise quiet village, but nothing made sense. Consulting her time piece, she found that she was running a bit late and needed to hurry up to make it back exactly on time. When the launch pad came into view, it was clear that something was wrong. The engines in the transport were on and the sounds of the landing gear retracting caused Jyn to break into a heart-pounding sprint.

As Jyn closed in on the hovering transport as it slowly rotated in the air. At the same time, a storm trooper emerged from behind a charging station directly on the other side of the landing pad from Jyn. Skidding to a stop and standing temporarily paralyzed, Jyn was not willing to run toward the storm trooper or away from her only transport off the planet. The storm trooper fired his blaster at the hull of the transport ship which caused jets of plasma to ricochet randomly into the air or explode in deadly sparks. As this was happening the transport rotated so the pilot, Saw Gerrera, could finally see Jyn. As soon as she came into view, the transport whipped around to face the storm trooper and open it's loading bay to the swiftly moving legs of Jyn Erso.

The transport took off with such force that the twelve year old was swept off her feet and slammed into the wall of the loading bay. The craft shook as Saw pushed its limits trying to get a safe distance from the planet before jumping into hyperspace.

Jyn entered the cockpit and sat quietly, waiting for Saw to explain the mission, but he just gazed into the dancing light of hyperspace. She was intrigued by the sniper blaster that was secured to the wall. It had not been there on the trip to the planet. "Why did we attack that village?" she asked.

"Huh, we didn't attack that village. That was just a distraction."

Jyn waited. "Okay. A distraction for what?"

"We had intercepted some information leading us to believe that the Imperial Military is going to make this planet a new center of operations for the whole sector. They had secretly brought in a new director and was going to exert control over dozens of more planets, billions of people. I found out where that new director lived. Your distraction got him out of his house and in transit at the place and time I wanted."

"Oh," she said. Knowing Saw, the lack of details meant the assassination had gone as planned. Jyn was starting to realize just how ruthless he was or was becoming. She never understood the logic behind his brutality and cruelty, but he was sure that he was right. Saw was willing to sacrifice everything to that belief.


End file.
